a one-way ticket (emma, jag, sunny, coby, curnen)

[st_ackeddeck]

Her first reading with the deck Jag had given her had pointed Emma in the right direction for crafting her counteroffer. She'd gone, on her own, back to the Goblin Market and found the fairy who'd told Jag they could send him home.

It turned out True Sight was even more valuable to an ambitious fairy looking for an advantage than Emma had expected, and an hour after their negotiations were finalized, she walked out of Faerie, her eyes haunted and red rimmed from tears, carefully guarding a sprig of pale purple sweetpea flowers she carried. When chaos of the fairy realm was replaced with the cacophonous greens of the Irish Hills room, exhaled in relief, and then hurried back to her rooms.

"Jag?" she called out as the door to their suite shut behind her. They only had until moonrise, and she had no idea when that would be.

Comments

[st_rummer]

Head tilting, Coby thought a moment. "She was singing up on the roof when I came in."

That didn't mean she was still there. Besides, there was something going on with Jag, and that seemed more important. Unless he was just looking for Curnen and found Coby on the way.

"Dude, what's up? You seem..." He wasn't quite sure how to finish that. Relieved, yeah, but maybe wired too? And hurt, although Coby couldn't say why he thought that. "Did something happen in Faerie?"

[st_artandstoke]

Jag chuckled at the question, because... yes. Absolutely, yes. "Emma got us a way home," he answered, opening his hand to show the three small, purple flowers in it. "If the Fae aren't completely full of shite. She made a deal. At moonrise, whoever has one of those is going home."

[st_rummer]

It took... a long moment for what Jag was saying to make any sense. And then once he really got the whole 'going home' part, he was speechless a little longer.

"Dude," came out finally. A mix of seriously and whoa and thank fuck.

"That," he pointed at the flowers in Jag's hand. Such a cliché fairy thing, using flowers, that didn't really fit with the reality of fairies he'd known, "is our way home?"

[st_oneswidow]

You'd think that a fairy being let loose in a fairy world that Curnen would practically be living on the other side, but the truth of the matter was that it made her about as itchy as it did most of the humans here. The Tufa had separated from the Seelie court so long ago that even the ones who could remember it weren't sure they'd be able to fit in there anymore. For Curnen, it had been nothing more than a distant story. So she came back for things like meals and sleeping and showers.

She came striding into the bar, twisting water out of her hair and whistling 'Spancil Hill,' stopping when she realized she wasn't by herself. She grinned. "Gentlemen."

[st_artandstoke]

Jag breathed out in relief when Curnen walked up to them. "Thank fuck." Now that she and Coby were both here but they still didn't have flowers, Jag's sense of urgency only grew. He had no idea when moonrise might be. So he just repeated what he knew. "Emma made a deal for people to go home. At moonrise, whenever that is, whoever's got one of these," showing the flowers in his hand, "gets to go home. If we can trust the Fae, which..." He finished that up with a shrug. But honestly, he was ready and willing to try it. He looked at both of them, urgent hope shining in his eyes as he held his hand out to them. "Go on, take one."

[st_rummer]

Coby was about to tell Curnen she knew there wasn't anything gentlemanly about him and Jag, and she liked them that way, but the urgency in Jag's voice and his eyes cut through the teasing.

This was serious shit.

Fairies and magic weren't anything he understood, but if there was any chance it would work. Fuck, he had to try. He plucked a bloom off the stem, his other hand coming up to rest of Jag's shoulder. "If Emma thinks it should work, she's probably right." He might not know her well, but she seemed too careful to leave something like that to chance. Especially when it came to Jag.

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen flipped her hair over her shoulder to free her hands, taking a flower before she'd even really thought about what that might mean. "Home...?" It seemed impossible. She stared at the bloom on her palm. "This little thing?"

[st_artandstoke]

"I don't even know..." Jag shook his head. "I don't know if it'll work. Where it might send us." Something had settled inside him, when they'd both taken a flower. Now that he wasn't afraid they might be left behind, though, all that was left to think about was what lay ahead. What did home even mean to the Fae?

[st_rummer]

Keeping the flower stemmed pinched between his fingers, Coby reached out, an arm around each of them to pull them into a hug. "We gotta get outta this place," he sang softly, and tried to remember this moment, the feel of the three of them together, before who knew what would happen next.

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen laughed shakily, letting herself be pulled into the embrace. Would home mean going back to Rob? Would it mean she'd be back in Needsville, right there in front of the fucking post office porch where her father's rocking chair should--would--be standing empty? But... "Fuck, I may never see you again."

[st_artandstoke]

Jag's arms tightened around them as Curnen gave voice to his own fears. Even if he did see them again, it likely wouldn't be them. He knew this better than most, with this Emma plucked from before they had met. Curnen hadn't come from London at all, and Coby had come from a different time than Jag. There was a painful lump in his throat now, but he forced words out. They weren't big words, but he meant them in a way that tore at his heart. "I'll miss you both so much."

[st_rummer]

Coby was trying not to think about how they didn't know what would happen when they went home. Or what that even meant to some fairy asshole. Because, fuck, this place was killing them.

But they might never see each other again.

He pressed a kiss to Curnen's temple, and then to Jag's, and with his voice going rough with tangled emotions, "We all found our way to London before." Well, some version of them had. "We can... We'll find each other. Somehow."

He wasn't watching, but he felt something as the flower in his hand faded, upwards into shimmering dust and floated away, then the world seemed to tilt and fall out from under him, tugging Jag and Curnen out of his arms.

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen had been prepared to go home--back to Rob or back to Needsville, who the hell knew--but this she had not been prepared for at all. She had not been ready for the sight of a strange city, for the ghosts of images assailing her especially when she was so sure that none of them had anything to do with her.

She was losing her mind again, only this time she could tell it was happening.